Globalisation may be under threat elsewhere, but it persists and indeed accelerates in football,
La Liga want to stage December’s scheduled domestic league
fixture between Villarreal and Barcelona in Miami.
According to multiple sources familiar with the discussions,
who asked The Athletic to remain anonymous to protect relationships, the Spanish top-flight
league have held preliminary discussions to relocate the fixture, which would
ordinarily take place at Villarreal’s Estadio de la Ceramica home in eastern
Spain, to instead be staged in Florida.
It would be the first time a European top-flight league
fixture has taken place in the United States.
On Monday, the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) will
discuss their approval of the proposal, which if granted, would lead to UEFA
being asked to initiate the procedures for FIFA to grant authorisation for the
fixture change.
The Spanish league first attempted to stage a match abroad
in 2018 with a proposal for Girona’s home league game against Barcelona to be
played in Miami. However, this was met with opposition from both the RFEF and
FIFA, world football’s governing body, as was a similar proposal the following
year to play Atletico Madrid’s league match against Villarreal in the U.S..
Since then, relations between La Liga and the RFEF have
improved. Meanwhile, the possibility of playing domestic league fixtures abroad
has increased after FIFA was dropped from a landmark lawsuit by the U.S.
events promoter Relevent in April 2024.
Relevent, founded by Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross,
accused FIFA’s directive, issued in 2018, of guiding that domestic games should
be played in their home territory, as acting as a monopoly and preventing fair
competition.
FIFA and Relevent settled on their case without prejudice,
meaning Relevent reserve the right to reopen their litigation should FIFA not
come up with a satisfactory reconsideration of their position.
Any competitive fixture being staged abroad requires a green
light from each domestic federation — the RFEF and the United States Soccer
Federation (USSF) — alongside each of the relevant continental-wide
confederations, UEFA and Concacaf.
FIFA, meanwhile, brought global club soccer to the U.S. this
summer by revamping their Club World Cup as a 32-team tournament. They have
been in the process of reviewing their policies on domestic matches taking
place outside of their home country for over a year and are not expected to be
a hindrance to the initiative.
The biggest challenge for La Liga will be to secure the
backing of the authorities at home, where the Spanish national federation must
approve the fixture as well as UEFA. The RFEF is due to discuss the proposal on
Monday.
Despite La Liga’s collective desire to bring a game to the
U.S., Real Madrid has expressed internal opposition. Madrid, the 36-time league
winner, previously opposed the idea of taking individual matches outside the
U.S. because executives have concerns about how it will impact the integrity of
La Liga’s competition if home advantage for a participating team is eliminated,
therefore creating an imbalanced competition.
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